Society, dead or alive, can have no charm without intimacy and no intimacy withou t an interest in trifles.

-Arthur Balfour When to the sessions of sweet, solemn thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sight the lack of many a thing I sought. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored and sorrows end. -William Shakespeare Given the bombardment of ads, faxes, e-mails and competing letters assaulting th e potential donors' senses, your challenge is to capture the readers' interests with an opening line that crashes through. Ask a provocative question. Make a bo ld statement. Share a fascinating anecdote. Do whatever it takes to get in step with your reader, seize their attention and keep them reading. -Steve Brown If nothing is serious, nothing is funny. -Oscar Wilde I have every sympathy with the American who was so horrified by what he had read of the effects of smoking that he gave up reading. -Henry G. Strauss There is no certain future. -Bob Woodward No gains without pains. -Adlai Stevenson No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden. -Thomas Jefferson He had come to that time in his life (it varies for every man) when a human bein g gives himself over to his demon or to his genius, according to a mysterious la w which orders him either to destroy or to surpass himself. -Marguerite Yourcen ar Genius is the ability to put into effect what is in your mind. -F. Scott Fitzge rald What might be taken for a precocious genius is the genius of childhood. When the child grows up, it disappears without a trace. It may happen that this boy will become a real painter some day, or even a great painter. But then he will have to begin everything again, from zero. -Pablo Picasso Genius is intensity. -Honore Balzac You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yo urself that you truly give. -Kahlil Gibran Since the mind is a specific biocomputer, it needs specific instructions and dir ections. The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't defin e them, learn about them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achie vable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them. -Denis Waitley Better aim at the moon than shoot into the well. -American proverb (Goals are) tangible action items. -Rick Pitino Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they a re, who already possess it. -La Rochefoucauld For goals to be realistic they must be measurable. -Unknown. Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing f rom one step of success to another, forming new wishes, and seeing them gratifie d. He that labors in any great or laudable undertaking has his fatigues first su pported by hope, and afterwards rewarded by joy. --Samuel Johnson He who every morning plans the transactions of the day and follows out that plan , carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy da y. The orderly arrangement of his time is like a ray of light which darts itself through all his occupations. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of t ime is surrendered merrily to the chance of incidents, all things lie huddled to gether in one chaos, which admits of neither distribution nor a review. -Victor Hugo We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one object ive. -Dwight D. Eisenhower The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in h aving no goal to reach. -Benjamin E. Mays In teacher--student partnerships . . . success depends on a common understanding

of clear goals. -Unknown Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly b ountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart desir es must come to you. -Mohandas Gandhi The mind's direction is more important than its progress. -Joseph Joubert It seems hard to look into God's cards, but I cannot for a moment believe that h e plays dice and makes use of telepathic means as the current quantum theory all eges he does. -Albert Einstein The will of God prevails . . . by His mere quite power on the minds of the now c ontestants, he could have either saved or destroyed the union without a human co ntest . . . -Abraham Lincoln My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit w ho reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. -Albert Einstein If someone were to ask me whether I believed in God, or saw God, or had a partic ular relationship with God, I would reply that I don't separate God from my worl d in my thinking. I feel that God is everywhere. That's why I never feel separat ed from God or feel I must seek God, any more than a fish in the ocean feels it must seek water. In a sense, God is the "ocean" in which we live. -Robert Fulgh um God--the Unmoved Mover. -Aristotle Jehovah's self transcends his noblest works. Earth's ponderous wheels would break, her axles snap, If freighted with the load of Deity. -Charles H. Spurgeon The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament showeth his handiwork. -The Bible, Psalm 19:1 Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself. -Henry James The function of government is to help and develop the individual. -Unknown The design and end of government (is) freedom and security. -Thomas Paine Doing what's right isn't the problem. It's knowing what's right. -Lydon B. John son Government is not reason, it is not eloquence--it is force. -George Washington No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as of duty . Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only. If our government e ver fails it will be from this weakness. -Thomas Jefferson